


not coming home

by HerDiamonds



Series: not coming home [1]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, i beg y’all please trust the process you won’t be sorry, post 16x16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:01:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27588536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerDiamonds/pseuds/HerDiamonds
Summary: “So you have to say it. If we’re over, you have to say it, to my face, so I can sign these papers and walk out that door. You have to tell me that you don’t love me anymore.”orthe one where jo confronts alex after she receives his letter
Relationships: Alex Karev/Jo Wilson Karev
Series: not coming home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2192838
Comments: 14
Kudos: 38





	not coming home

**Author's Note:**

> so listen, l i s t e n...this fic’s been brewing since I rejoined the jolex fandom and dove back into writing for them. it’s taken me quite a while to finally be able to sit down and write it because I have so many feelings about what happened in 16x16, but if I had my way, this is exactly how I would have wanted things to go down. 
> 
> I toyed with writing two separate endings because I really wasnt actually sure where this was going or how I wanted it to end, whether it end happy or not so happy, because all I knew was that jo needed to confront alex. but somehow, like usual, the story wrote itself, and we ended like this. and im really happy with this. it hurt a lot. but I really needed to get this out and share it. 
> 
> with that being said, I really hope y’all enjoy this one, another one of my 4am fics. 
> 
> and if you haven’t been following along on my Tumblr, I have a new fluffier series in the works, a s14 pregnancy au I’ve dubbed the KKC universe! so go visit me on Tumblr at @cicinicole-14.

**_Meredith Grey:_ **

_Where are you?_

_Glasses said you left!_

* * *

She took a deep breath as the car rolled to a stop. She looked down at her phone one last time, making sure this was still the correct place.

She ignores the texts and takes another deep breath. The driver in the front seat clears his throat, promptly startling her. She mumbles a quiet _‘sorry’_ before opening the door and stepping out of the car looking up at the building in front of her.

She grips her oversized purse closer to her shoulder and gives the door a shove before the uber proceeds to pull away, leaving her there, with no chance of turning back.

Her ears are ringing in her head, her heartbeat pounds in her chest and the images of people in front of her are a complete blur as they pass her by.

But slowly, she puts one foot in front of the other, and steps forward.

The air is cool, cold against her cheeks as she steps through the automatic sliding doors, and there’s beyond commotion bustling around her.

She doesn’t focus on that. She can’t.

With one foot in front of the other, she continues to step forward.

She doesn’t remember asking someone which direction she needs to be headed in, but she somehow makes her way, on autopilot, to her destination.

The white hallways, the contrasting green scrubs, the com system overhead calling out names and instructions. It’s nothing new to her. In fact, it’s so routine to her, she tends to forget the fact that it’s someone’s job to pick up those desk phones and bark orders overhead like that. She tends to block the voices out.

The elevator doors open in front of her and she takes a step inside. There’s an orderly, pushing a woman in a wheelchair, already on board. She smiles weakly at them, pressing the floor she needs to go to before slinking towards the back of the elevator cab and waiting.

It feels like an eternity as she watches the elevator change floors via the glass walls behind her. She feels like she can see the whole hospital this way.

And it's terrifying.

The elevator finally stops on the correct floor, and she steps off in a haze. There’s new smells and new sights. These walls were brighter, warmer, _happier._ So vastly contrasting from her mood; nervous, brave, _afraid._

She lets her eyes finally focus on the people around her, staring at them. Most of them don’t see her, a few of them ignoring her and few she feels like had the audacity to stare back. She swallows and makes her way up to the nurses hub before growing nervous again.

She doesn’t even get a chance to speak before her heart seemingly feels like it stops beating beneath her chest. Before her breath is catching in her throat, and her ears seem like they are playing tricks on her. Her blood feels like it's running cold and it feels like the whole world just stops for that very moment she hears her name.

She hears _him_ say her name.

_“Jo.”_

She turns around, and her eyes immediately land on his.

She can’t stop the tears from being held back as a few of them break past her hold on them and roll down her cheeks.

She hates it. She hates _this._ She hates feeling like she’s weak, crying in public like this because she shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t _have_ to be here because _he_ should be _there_. He should be there with her and not here. Not like this.

But there they were. Standing in the middle of the Peds floor, in Kansas, and she felt like her whole world had shifted; again. 

She feels like she’d stood there for an eternity, and a negative amount of seconds all at the same time. She feels like her hand is on fire when he reaches for it, and she lets him take it, lets him guide her into some on call room, to be away from prying eyes and listening ears as she hears the door faintly lock behind her.

“Jo,” she hears him call her name once again, “What are you doing here?”

Her heart is still pounding in her chest. She didn’t know what to expect when she showed up. She didn’t know how she should expect to feel, but she certainly wasn’t expecting to feel so numb.

She takes a seat on one of the beds, pulling her purse closer onto her lap before rifling through it, trying to preoccupy her mind. Trying to focus herself on what she was here for, _why_ she was here.

For him.

For _them._

Carefully, she pulls out the envelope, and she feels his eyes drop from being on her to what’s in her hands. She can hear his breath catch in his throat as she presents the envelope to him, the one in his very own handwriting as she looks back up at him.

“You said sorry.” She broke the silence, speaking softly. “You said I deserved more than a letter. You said this was the worst thing you’ve ever done. You said it’s about you, and that I deserve more than this. You said you love me. You said that that it wasn’t fair, and that you love Izzie too. You said you imagined a life of hers, and now you’re in it too. You said never in a million years you thought you’d belong here, but you do. You said you couldn’t lie to me, but you loved us both. You said if it was just her, or me, you’d walk away from here and come back to me. You said you had kids, and that I would get what that really means. You said I would understand. You said you’d hoped I loved you enough to let you take this chance. You said you didn’t know, but now you wouldn’t be able to look anyone in the eye if you didn’t stay for them and do everything you could. You said I was wrong, that I wasn’t the ‘let’s get a dog’ girl. You said you meant it when you asked me to marry you, when you told me you loved me. You said you wished getting everything you wanted meant that you didn’t have to hurt me in the process but you couldn’t lie to me. You said you weren’t coming home. You said you couldn’t face me, or look me in the eye because you wouldn’t be able to walk away. You said thank you for making you a better person. You said you signed divorce papers and tucked them away into this envelope. You said I deserved everything good in this life and you hoped I’d find someone so much better than you. You said you were sorry. You said you didn’t know how to end this, that you didn’t want to.” She rambled on surprising herself that she’d managed her speech without tears.

She watches as his gaze falls from her face to his hands and then to the floor, like he was ashamed, like he was hurting. Like he should be.

And it hurt her.

“You said all of that. I know, because I have read that letter so many freaking times, Alex. You said all of that, but you know what you didn’t do?” Her question gets a reaction from him and he looks up at her, his attention fully on her now. “You didn’t ask me what _I_ wanted. You didn’t even think what I would have wanted or would have done. God Alex, we are _married._ We took _vows,_ for better or for worse. _I love you!_ I want everything _with you._ I don’t _want_ anyone else. I don’t _want_ your shares of the hospital or the loft, without _you._ I don’t want to live my life without you. But you didn't _ask.”_

“I’m sorry.” He says sheepishly, ashamed.

“I know.” She whispers quietly.

“I didn’t think you–”

“Exactly, Alex, you didn’t think. You knew I’d understand how you felt, but you didn’t think I would want this. That I would uproot my life for you and your kids. You didn’t think I deserved to have my world flipped upside-down right? Well it did anyway.” She huffs, exasperated.

The envelope in her hand shakes as her whole body feels like it has just ran a marathon. The pace of her breathing picks up as her mind starts to race again. She takes a moment to reel herself in and try and tamp down her emotions for another moment longer.

“So you have to say it. If we’re over, you have to say it, to my face, so I can sign these papers and walk out that door. You have to tell me that you don’t love me anymore.”

“Jo, I can’t–” he says before pausing.

Because he can’t. He can’t say it. He can’t look her in the eye and tell her to her face that he doesn’t love her anymore, because that would be a lie. That would be a bald–faced lie, right to her face.

And she knows that. 

“You have to say it.” She repeats. “You have to say that you don’t love me, that it’s over.” She repeats, her voice cracking in her throat.

She can see the tears welling up in his eyes now, the glassy sheen that clouds them as she fights back her own tears, yet again.

“You have to say it!” She shouts this time.

She needs him to just say it.

_Why wouldn’t he just say it._

“I _can’t!”_ He yells back and her heart races. Her heart races in her chest because finally. _Finally_ something is becoming of this. Maybe, just maybe she can get him so angry, so worked up enough he’ll actually say it.

“Why? Why Alex? Just fucking say it!” She’s screaming now, and she’s sure that people outside of the on call room could probably hear them, but she doesn’t care. She just needs him to tell her it’s over. She needs him to tell her he doesn’t love her so she can finally try and move on.

She knows it won’t help. She knows that hearing him say the words won’t ever help. She knows that no matter how much time passes, how many years go on, how many people come and go in her life, her heart will always belong to him.

He looks up, locking eyes with her for a second before tearing his gaze away, just past her face and staring at the wall behind her, fixated on it with the tears still in his eyes as he fights them back. And in a tone she’s never heard him speak in before, he whispers those words.

“It’s over. I don’t love you anymore.” He can’t bring himself to look her in the eye.

She stands up, passing the envelope to him quickly, as if it was burning her fingers. “I already signed the papers.” She says, pushing them into his hands.

They both know he’s lying. She knows he’s lying but if she dwells on it for even a second, if she lets herself think about it, for even a second, she wouldn’t be able to do this. She wouldn’t be able to do what she’s doing right now, standing up, smoothing out her shirt, tucking her purse against her body and walking out of the door without looking back.

She needed to stay focused. She needed to keep breathing, keep walking, keep going, right out that door, no matter what.

“Jo wait.”

_Keep walking. Don’t stop. Just keep walking._ She tells herself, but it doesn’t help. It’ll never help, because no matter what happened between them, he'd always have the power to make her turn around. To make her wait. To make her look at him, and give him one more chance. Even when he messed up. Even when he didn’t deserve it. She would always turn around.

And she did.

And he stands there, silently.

She raises a brow in his direction, trying to prompt him to continue, her patience wearing thin.

“You wanted to hear me say those words, but I can’t. I told you, I couldn’t lie to you. I love you, more than anything, you know that, or I hope you do. But I love my kids too. So I want you to know that I still love you. That I don’t want to have to end this. That it shouldn’t have had to end this way–”

“Then don’t let it.” She cuts him off. She stares directly at him this time, afraid if she looks away all her confidence she seemingly gathered will disappear.

So she takes a step closer to him, and another, and then another, before she’s standing right in front of him again. She’s standing so close to him again. She can almost feel his body in her personal space as she refuses to break their eye contact.

“Don’t let it end that way.”

“What do you want me to do here, Jo?” He asks, confused.

And she looks at him. She stares at him, because if she has to tell him what the answer is, it’s not worth it. _She’s_ not worth it. And she’ll finally have her answer.

But she doesn’t have to say it because in the next moment, he’s tearing up the envelope in his hands, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him.

He’s so close, her chest pressed up against his white dress shirt. Her arms pressed into him, as his arms hold her against him and their foreheads touch, hers resting against his. She closes her eyes as she feels his breath on her skin, his stubble against her fingertips as she reaches up and trails her fingers against his cheek.

“Stay.” He whispers.

It’s barely audible, but she hears it loud and clear, echoing in her ears. She feels it everywhere as she’s pressed up against him, and she releases the breath she was holding before taking in a new, deeper breath before diving in.

And she kisses him, with everything in her, she kisses him. She tangles her fingers in the hair at his neck with one hand as the other grips his tie so tightly she’s afraid to let go. His fingers dig into her waist, she knows there will be bruises. But he holds her against him, and she knows he feels the same. She knows he feels like if he lets go, he’s afraid she’ll walk away.

She’s afraid too. She’s afraid she’ll walk away too, because he’s right. She doesn’t deserve this. She deserves better, and good, and everything that isn’t this. But that isn’t what she wants.

She wants him.

She pulls back eventually, breathlessly, but still holding him tightly.

And he asks her to stay.

* * *

_In Kansas_

_not coming home_

**Author's Note:**

> you can come yell at me on tumblr at @cicinicole-14 for this one, I know I deserved it for a while there… im sorry.


End file.
